They scrambled up the tower's ladder and had they not been so excited they may have complained that it was both long and completely ridiculous to climb. When they reached the top, Rochelle shoved opened the door and they pooled outside.

There was the bridge—beautiful, elegant, just waiting for them to cross. And then…

"Rescue 7, this is Papa Gator, do you copy?"

"They sound like soldiers," Coach offered softly. He nodded towards the corpse where an obvious soldier laid propped against a barricade, his throat torn out. In his left hand was a radio. "Someone should talk to them…"

On the radio, Rescue 7 answered. "Preparing for take off. ETA in 10 minutes."

Nick snatched the radio from the corpse and clicked down to talk. "Uh… hello?"

"Jesus Christ!" came the astounded voice on the other side. "That's coming from the bridge! Bridge identify yourself!"

"Uh…" Nick frowned slightly, then with one eyebrow quirked at his companions answered matter-of-factly. "Name's Nick. I've got three other people with me; Coach, Rochelle and Ellis."

"Bridge. Are you immune?"

"I think that's pretty obvious," Nick replied dryly.

"Negative, Bridge. Are you immune? Have you encountered the Infected?"

"Yeah." Nick snorted. "Sure, you could say that." Encountered the Infected? Fucking assholes, look around.

"Rescue 7, are you equipped to take on Carriers?"

A new voice responded. "Affirmative."

There was a long silence until the soldier finally responded. "Bridge, what is your location?"

Nick glanced up, gauging the setting sun. "We're on the west side…"

"Bridge, all other locations have been evacuated. You must lower the bridge and cross to the east side to the remaining helicopter. Do you understand? You have fifteen minutes."

Nick sighed, glancing to his companions that all shrugged. "Yeah, we got it. Don't you dare leave us."

There was the crackle of dead air over the radio until, maybe out of pity, the soldier responded. "God be with you."

He had never seen so many abandoned cars in his entire life. There were miles and miles of them, just sitting there—empty, forsaken. It made Nick shudder with the thought of how many of these people hadn't made it out alive. He never got to think hard about it, though. Around him, the world was a violent screaming roar of chaos.

For every car that was abandoned, it appeared that whoever had been driving it was now an Infected—an Infected that was hell bent on making sure the four's last stretch to freedom was one of pure misery and terror.

Everywhere around them screams of the blood-thirsty once-humans sounded. They clawed at the four, bit at them and threw themselves on top of them. Even as they were pelted with showers of bullets or had a limb sliced right off they still came at them, crawling, spit drooling down their enraged faces.

It was like they couldn't accept that someone—god forbid—should be left alive.

The Survivors crawled over rubble, slid across the roof of cars and pulled each other up onto parts of the bridges that had collapsed under the heavy bombing of the military. More than once they were forced to backtrack when they found themselves facing a gaping hole in the bridge. It was maddening. They felt their arms growing tired and their breathing was becoming harsh in their own ears. Blood slicked their arms and faces—some of it their own, most of it not. Behind them, was a wake of dead bodies.

Then, suddenly, almost like it had snuck up on them, there was hum of the helicopter's blade. As they fought their way closer, Rochelle pointed. "It's the 'copter guys! It's there! It's still there!"

But there was no time to rejoice. Just as they sprinted down the ramp towards the docks, there was a terrible shudder that shook the ground. It was a Tank. God, of course it was.

"Run past it! Run, run, run!" Nick screamed, shoving at Rochelle and Ellis who had turned to stand and fight. They hesitated for a moment but then they quickly followed. He was right, they were too god damn close to risk being killed now.

A piece of concrete sailed over their heads and crashed into the fencing. The fence groaned under the weight. The metal moaned—and it almost sounded human—as the entire thing collapsed forward. It landed directly on Coach—pinning the man under its heavy mass.

"Jesus Christ," Nick breathed. The other three stopped immediately, tugging and pulling at the fencing, trying hard to free the man. But it was quickly proving to be impossible.

Behind his grimace, Coach offered a smile. "It's okay, kids, you go on. I've got you." His hand—covered in his own blood now—shook as it pulled his pistol free. As best he could with the crushing weight, he aimed it towards the charging Tank. "You do ol' Coach proud."

There was a horrible sense of dread that filled the three as they made one last effort to lift the fencing together—and failed. Rochelle let out a sob, shaking her head in denial. Nick grabbed her arm and his eyes met with the husky Georgian man. There was nothing the conman could say to even begin to express his gratitude for all the close calls Coach had saved him from, from all the time that the big man had been there to pull him back to his feet, or give him some oddball story to laugh about… there were no words to describe the respect Nick had—and so a simple nod sufficed.

Ellis and Nick pulled at Rochelle. She sobbed and kicked as they pulled her, but the other two proved stronger. They wrestled her into the back of the helicopter and not even before they could seat themselves it was flying into the air. Coach's fate was sealed.

And bless him, he went down in a hail of fire, laughter on his tongue.

The three sat in near silence, huddled together with Rochelle in the middle. She was sobbing hard still, her face pressed into her hands as Nick and Ellis held her close together. They all wept.

When the helicopter landed forty minutes later, a rush of men entered the helicopter and pulled the three to their feet. The soldiers did not look pleased to see them.

God, it was really going to end like this, wasn't it?

"On your knees, hands behind your head," came the strict voice of someone from behind them. A rough hand guided them all down onto their knees as they faced a short wall of cement. It was splattered with blood.

They had been through too much. They had seen too much… It was just too damn risky… They just couldn't risk it. They couldn't risk any more Infection.

Nick's fingers were locked behind his head and he could feel his body shaking. His knees were digging into pieces of concrete below. He felt his heart shudder. Behind them there was the shuffle of metal on metal, the familiar sound of a gun being loaded. God they had come so far.

Nick looked to his left where Ellis knelt beside him, kneeling in a similar position as he was. The young man's hat was missing, probably lost during their sprint across the crumbling bridge—or maybe when the helicopter had taken flight into the air. Nick couldn't remember. Ellis' auburn curls were wavering in the wind and Nick wondered why he had always hid them under that hat. They were beautiful. The color reminded him of the sunset long ago when they had first kissed… Yes, that little orange-red that had melted together beautifully. He would never forget that color.

Ellis looked to him. His face was streaming with tears. There was a cut across the bridge of his nose, a bruise just above his left brow and his lips were chapped. Nick wanted to kiss it all away. He wanted to kiss away the tears. He wanted to take the other in his arms and whisper that he loved him more than anything in the world. He wanted to tell Ellis that everything would be fine.

"Nick," Ellis choked out, each breath he took in was catching in his throat. "Nick, I love you. I love you, Nick."

Nick smiled. "I love you too, Ellis." He didn't care that he was told not to move. His left hand fell away from the back of his head and reached out for the man kneeling beside him. Without hesitation, Ellis' hand found his.

"Ready," came that same voice from before. Click, click came the shuffle of guns as they rose. Something cold pressed into the back of Nick's head, but he had eyes only for Ellis.

Ellis let out a sob at the touch of the barrel and he was shaking his head, face twisted with horrible realization.

"Ellis, everything will be okay," Nick reassured, squeezing the others hand tightly. Ellis nodded quickly, forcing a smile out from behind his tears. Nick felt tears in his own eyes. When he blinked they streamed down his cheeks. "We're going to be okay, Ellis. Everything will be okay. I love you."

Ellis tried to whisper his I love you's again, but his voice refused to come. Nick knew though. He could see those lips forming the words over and over.

There was an ache in Nick's chest. A burning. But, everything felt… okay. He was aware of how the sky was blue above, how it smelled of the sea, how the wind was gentle on his skin. His hand was in Ellis and their eyes were locked together—mysterious green and lovely blue. Nick did not dare to think of anything else—especially about how unfair all of this was. He just smiled hard at the mechanic and all his love was behind that smile.

Everything would be okay. Somewhere deep inside of Nick's aching heart, he knew it was true.

That goofy little smile Ellis always slipped him found its way to the mechanic's face. A gentle laugh of appreciation left Nick—he noticed it, and God, did he love it.

"Fire!"

We will be lifted, up from all of this.
Yeah, we will transcend the insignificance of our existence.
Yeah, your body's gone, but angel, you will live.

A/N:

Although the ending to this absolutely destroyed me inside to write… it also felt… right. I always agreed with Nick's statement that they'd probably be lined up against a wall and shot. It also saved me the pain of having to write a cliché ending with 'rainbows and lollipops'. If there is a demand, I have considered writing a 'cliché' ending, but only if I must.

The last 3 lines are from the song "We Are Free Men" by Bright Eyes. To be honest, everything I kept writing to sum up everything paled in comparison to those words. I'm only sad I didn't write it myself.

Thank you for reading and reviewing. Thank you, honestly. Without you guys this wouldn't have ever been finished.